Identifying, screening, and blocking of calls from problematic telecommunications carriers and number blocks

ABSTRACT

A method and systems for identifying communicators as wanted or unwanted based on communications from such communicators, the method comprising determining communications from phone numbers as being unwanted by analyzing communication content features of communications associated with unwanted communicators, identifying telecommunications carriers that acquired the phone numbers, computing scores for the telecommunications carriers based on an amount of the determined unwanted communications from the phone numbers are unwanted, intercepting an inbound communication from a given phone number, identifying the given phone number is associated with a given one of the telecommunications carriers, and configuring handling of communications from the phone number based on a score of the given telecommunications carrier.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material,which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention

This application generally relates to monitoring telecommunicationscarriers, and in particular, automatically detecting and handing callsbased on unwanted communications attributable to a particular carrier'sbehavior and attributes.

Description of the Related Art

Telephone users may receive calls from callers that such users generallyand collectively agree are unwanted—typically because the caller isunsolicited, such as a telemarketer who is sequentially or randomlycalling upon the audience and is not one of such users' typical knowncallers with which such users' have a pre-existing relationship. This isparticularly true in mobile communication systems where mobile telephoneusers will often be interrupted at any time by unwanted calls. Inaddition, unsolicited messages may be left in voice mail systems ofusers who configure their landline and wireless telephone devices toforward their unanswered calls to such voice mail systems to answertheir unanswered phone calls. Voice mail left by unwanted callers is anespecially expensive problem for users who must retrieve messages fromthe voice mail system via cell phones, long distance calls, ortranscriptions. Voice mail left by unwanted callers causes users tospend real dollars (air time, per minute charges, toll free charges toenterprise, voicemail transcription, etc.) and waste precious time onmessages to which they do not want to listen.

Furthermore, certain carriers may be more likely to be the originator ofan unwanted communication than others based on the ease at which atemporary disposable number may be obtained, or by their lack ofparticipation in certain mechanisms that dissuade or prevent undesirablecommunications behavior such as but not limited to spoofing originationnumbers.

Current solutions for identifying unwanted solicitors rely on apredetermined list of unwanted solicitors. For example, calleridentification (ID) systems allow recipients to screen the source ofincoming calls, but many callers can either “spoof” a fake number toavoid recognition or block their Caller ID information entirely so thatno information is provided to a recipient about the caller.Call-blocking features allow recipients to block callers from specificphone numbers and those that intentionally block their callinginformation. Government telemarketing restriction lists allow recipientswho take certain specific steps to be listed as people who do not wishto be called by telemarketers, but such lists are not fully effective toavoid unwanted telephone calls.

The above solutions do not adequately provide full protection fromunwanted phone calls. Accordingly, additional technology is still neededin order to enable effective call blocking.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a method and systems for identifyingcommunicators as wanted or unwanted. According to one embodiment, thesystem comprises a directory server comprising memory and a processingdevice configured to determine communications from phone numbers asbeing unwanted by analyzing communication content features ofcommunications associated with unwanted communicators, identifytelecommunications carriers that acquired the phone numbers, and computescores for the telecommunications carriers based on the quantities andqualities of unwanted communications originating from the carriers. Thesystem further comprises a communication screening system configured tointercept an inbound communication from a given phone number, identifyif the given phone number is associated with a given one of thetelecommunications carriers, and configure handling of communicationsfrom the phone number based on a score which is influenced but notwholly dependent on past behavior of the given telecommunicationscarrier.

The directory server may determine the scores of the telecommunicationscarriers based on an aggregation of data of prior and current behaviorgathering by monitoring of traffic or reported instances of positive ornegative communication behaviors by the telecommunications carrier. Inone embodiment, the communication screening system may prompt for aresponse from the given phone number to record a digital sample. In afurther embodiment, the communication screening system may extract datafrom the inbound communication to record the communicator's informationand behavior as a digital sample. The inbound communication may includea voice message or a bi-directional conversation.

The communication screening system may further configure the handling ofcommunications by at least one of suppressing auditory and/or visualindication of an incoming communication, blocking the phone number,playing a message that indicates unavailability to the originationcommunication device, playing a message to the origination communicationdevice to challenge if it is a wanted communication, and ending acommunication connection with the origination communication device. Thecommunication screening system may also be configured to block numbersbelonging to a series of ranges or matched patterns based on anoriginating and destination phone number. The directory server cancompare the inbound communication to fingerprints stored in a database.The fingerprints may comprise sequences of characters that arerepresentative of content of known communications. The directory servermay dynamically compute the scores for the telecommunications carriersby tracking percentages of unwanted communications from thetelecommunications carriers. The directory server may further detectspoofing of the numbers associated with the communications associatedwith the unwanted communicators and adjust the scores for thetelecommunications carriers based on the detection of spoofing.

According to another embodiment, the system comprises a processor and amemory having executable instructions stored thereon that when executedby the processor cause the processor to determine communications fromphone numbers as being unwanted by analyzing communication contentfeatures of communications associated with unwanted communicators,identify telecommunications carriers that acquired the phone numbers andoriginated the communication via the phone numbers, compute scores forthe telecommunications carriers based on an amount of the determinedunwanted communications from the phone numbers are unwanted, interceptan inbound communication from a given phone number, identify the givenphone number is associated with a given one of the telecommunicationscarriers, and configure handling of communications from the phone numberbased on a score of the given telecommunications carrier.

According to one embodiment, the method comprises determiningcommunications from phone numbers as being unwanted by analyzingcommunication content features of communications associated withunwanted communicators, identifying telecommunications carriers thatacquired the phone numbers and originated the communication via thephone numbers, computing scores for the telecommunications carriersbased on an amount of the determined unwanted communications from thephone numbers are unwanted, intercepting an inbound communication from agiven phone number, identifying the given phone number is associatedwith a given one of the telecommunications carriers, and configuringhandling of communications from the phone number based on a score of thegiven telecommunications carrier.

The method may further comprise determining the score of thetelecommunications carrier based on a monitoring of traffic or reportedinstances of positive or negative communication behaviors by thetelecommunications carrier. A response may be prompted from the givenphone number to record a digital sample. Data may be extracted from theinbound communication to record the digital sample. The inboundcommunication may include a voice message.

The scores for the telecommunications carriers may be computed bytracking percentages of unwanted communications from thetelecommunications carriers. The handling of communications may beconfigured by at least one of blocking the phone number, playing amessage that indicates unavailability to the origination communicationdevice, and ending a communication connection with the originationcommunication device. The method may further comprise blocking numbersbelonging to a series of ranges or matched patterns based on anoriginating and destination phone number.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is illustrated in the figures of the accompanying drawingswhich are meant to be exemplary and not limiting, in which likereferences are intended to refer to like or corresponding parts.

FIG. 1 illustrates a computing system according to an embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates another computing system according to an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a flowchart of a method for identifying unwantedcommunicators according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method for scoringtelecommunications carriers or number blocks according to an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a method for screening calls accordingto an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Subject matter will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, andwhich show, by way of illustration, exemplary embodiments in which theinvention may be practiced. Subject matter may, however, be embodied ina variety of different forms and, therefore, covered or claimed subjectmatter is intended to be construed as not being limited to any exampleembodiments set forth herein; example embodiments are provided merely tobe illustrative. It is to be understood that other embodiments may beutilized and structural changes may be made without departing from thescope of the present invention. Likewise, a reasonably broad scope forclaimed or covered subject matter is intended. Throughout thespecification and claims, terms may have nuanced meanings suggested orimplied in context beyond an explicitly stated meaning. Likewise, thephrase “in one embodiment” as used herein does not necessarily refer tothe same embodiment and the phrase “in another embodiment” as usedherein does not necessarily refer to a different embodiment. It isintended, for example, that claimed subject matter include combinationsof exemplary embodiments in whole or in part. Among other things, forexample, subject matter may be embodied as methods, devices, components,or systems. Accordingly, embodiments may, for example, take the form ofhardware, software, firmware or any combination thereof (other thansoftware per se). The following detailed description is, therefore, notintended to be taken in a limiting sense.

The present application discloses systems and method for detectingdesirable and undesirable behavior in the communications related togiven telecommunications carriers and the utilization of such in thehandling of calls from such carriers in the absence or presence of otherinformation about a given communication. Problematic telecommunicationscarrier behavior may include a carrier originating large amounts ofunwanted calls. The carriers may purchase blocks of numbers e.g., 1000consecutive numbers, which can then be given to their customers to use.For example, certain telecommunications carriers may acquire blocks ofphone numbers and wholesale them to customers, such as “robocallers” whoare more likely to purchase blocks of numbers. Examples of such carriersmay include Peerless Network, Paetec Communications, TeleportCommunications, XO Communications, and Broadview Networks. Callsoriginating from such carriers may be handled with additional scrutinyby, for example, running tests on the data in the call, requiring thecaller to authenticate or verify their identity, provide audiochallenges, or blocking calls. The additional scrutiny could bedetermined to be applicable or inapplicable depending on if the incomingcommunication matches the phone number of a stored contact on thereceiving telecommunication device. These carriers may also be scoredbased on a percentage of calls originating from numbers they acquiredbeing unwanted calls (e.g., spam and robocallers). Calls originatingfrom carriers with scores reflecting high undesirable traffic or otherquestionable attributes may be scrutinized more often and handled undermore stringent screening procedures. At least one disclosed system mayidentify carriers having large amounts of unwanted call traffic andblock calls or otherwise provide different levels of screening for callsfrom such carriers unless specified, e.g., placed on a whitelist.

The system presented in FIG. 1 includes phone devices 102 (such aslandline, cellular, analog, digital, satellite, radio, etc.), that arecapable of establishing and receiving telephonic communications via apublic telephone network 106, as well as application-enabled devices 104that are capable of establishing and receiving telephonic communicationsvia the data network 108 (e.g., using Voice over Internet Protocol(“VoIP”)). In some embodiments, the application-enabled devices 104 areenabled with an application such as the one available from YouMail Inc.,www.youmail.com, the assignee of the present patent application. Thepresence of a voice message server 118 is optional and not required inthe system, but if present can be utilized to augment available data.

According to one embodiment, the data network 108 may include theInternet or a private VPN (virtual private network), or any othercommunications network. Application-enabled devices 104 may be acomputing device capable of executing a telephony-related application(e.g., WiFi calling system, VoIP phone, etc.). Examples of computingdevices include personal computers, television set top boxes, mobilesmartphones, laptops, personal digital assistants (PDA), tabletcomputers, e-book readers, smartwatches and smart wearable devices, orany computing device having a central processing unit and memory unitcapable of connecting to a communications network. The computing devicemay also comprise a graphical user interface (GUI) or a browserapplication provided on a display (e.g., monitor screen, LCD or LEDdisplay, projector, etc.). A computing device may also include orexecute an application to communicate content, such as, for example,textual content, multimedia content, or the like. A computing device mayalso include or execute an application to perform a variety of possibletasks, such as browsing, searching, playing various forms of content,including streamed audio and video. A computing device may include orexecute a variety of operating systems, including a personal computeroperating system, such as a Windows, Mac OS or Linux, or a mobileoperating system, such as iOS, Android, or Windows Mobile, or the like.A computing device may include or may execute a variety of possibleapplications, such as a computing software application enablingcommunication with other devices, such as communicating one or moremessages, such as via email, short message service (SMS), or multimediamessage service (MMS).

The system further includes a call records service server 114, a phonedirectory server 112, and a call answering server 110. These servers mayvary widely in configuration or capabilities, but generally a servereach includes one or more central processing units and memory. A servermay also include one or more mass storage devices, one or more powersupplies, one or more wired or wireless network interfaces, one or moreinput/output interfaces, or one or more operating systems, such asWindows Server, Mac OS X, Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, or the like.

Call records service server 114 is able to accumulate phone numbers (oraddresses, or unique IDs) and information about the phone numbers from avariety of sources that can be used to determine if a given phone numberis that of e.g., an unwanted communicator, or a wanted communicator. Onesuch source is the application-enabled devices 104, which may send alist or log of calls made and received, recordings or transcriptions ofphone call conversations (e.g., voicemail transcription systems, suchas, one provided by the application from YouMail as mentioned above),text messages, and a list of contacts including phone numbers andassociated IDs to the call records service server 114 over the datanetwork 108. Other sources may include voice message server 118 and callanswering server 110. Voice message server 118 and call answering server110 may perform voice mail operations such as recording (and/ortranscribing) voice messages for subscribers of phone devices 102 andapplication-enabled devices 104, where the recorded or transcribed voicemessages can be forwarded to call records service server 114. The callanswering server 110 may optionally present challenges to communicationsand the details of interacting with those challenges can be madeavailable to or sent to the call records service server 118. Yet anothersource of information for accumulation in the call records serviceserver 114 include publicly available phone number data sources 116,such as, telephone listings and directories, electronic yellow pages,and the like. Call records service server 114 may search phone numberdata sources 116 for information about certain numbers includinginformation about their carrier, the owner of the numbers, addresses,etc. Still other possible sources of information for populating the callrecords service 114 include cell phone billing records, telephone andcable service provider records such as CDRs (call detail records), andthe like.

In at least one embodiment, the call records service server 114 maycreate one or more databases including “fingerprints” or digitalsignatures of known recordings of calls or messages (voice and/or text)from unwanted or wanted communicators by using speech processing,natural language processing, and machine learning algorithms with theinformation accumulated from the variety of sources. Each fingerprintmay uniquely identify a sequence of characters or audio fingerprint suchas a spectrogram designed to capture the content of, for example, acommonly appearing or known audio phrase or message. In anotherembodiment, a fingerprint may comprise a tag cloud, or alternatively, aweighted list, that includes each keyword that appears in the messageand the number of times each keyword appears in the message that is usedto summarize the content. A tag cloud (also known as, a word cloud or atext cloud) may comprise a representation of text content data includingkeywords or tags, and an emphasis of importance of each keyword or tagthat may be indicated with a variety of indicators, such as, ranking,arrangement, classification, word count, font size and color. Furtherdescription and details of fingerprinting are described in furtherdetail in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 10,051,121, entitled “SYSTEM ANDMETHOD FOR IDENTIFYING UNWANTED COMMUNICATIONS USING COMMUNICATIONFINGERPRINTING” which is herein incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

The phone directory server 112 may receive or retrieve the phone numbersand information about the phone numbers from the call records serviceserver 114. For each phone number, indications of likelihood that thephone number is that of an unwanted communicator may be provided by callrecords service server 114 to the phone directory server 112. Phonedirectory server 112 may include logic that determines the likelihoodthat a particular number is that of an unwanted communicator based onthe information about the phone numbers from records service server 114by using the techniques described herein. For example, the indication oflikelihood may be represented by a binary flag indicating whether or notthe number has been determined as exceeding a threshold value set aslikely to be that of an unwanted communicator. Alternatively, thelikelihood may be represented with a score value computed as thelikelihood of representing an unwanted communicator based on a set ofquantitative rules. In another embodiment, an indication may beretrieved from the call records service server 114 that explicitlyidentifies a phone number as an unwanted communicator (or categorizedotherwise). Phone directory server 112 may also match inbound calls ormessages with the known fingerprints from records service server 114 tocalculate a score that reflects a degree of overlap between the inboundcalls or messages and one or more fingerprints.

The logic of phone directory server 112 may additionally use varioussets of rules to help it determine the likelihood or probability of anumber being that of an unwanted communicator. For example, phonedirectory server 112 may also factor in the carrier from which the calloriginated. Certain carriers are associated with a high percentage ofrobocalls and are suspected or known to traffic with robocallingbusiness. Other carriers may be set to have known attributes that affectthe likelihood of wanted or unwanted calls, such as the carrier havingtaken additional steps to ensure calls from their network are notspoofed. The phone directory server 112 system may track a total volumeor percentage of robocalls/unwanted communications associated withcarriers or block of numbers belonging to the carriers and dynamicallyscore the carriers or block of numbers (collectively referred to as a“carrier score”). If a given carrier score exceeds a threshold, eitheras an absolute number, e.g., 50% (of traffic being undesirable orquestionable), or in comparison to other carriers or block of numbers,the associated carrier/block of numbers may be identified as bad orsuspicious. There could be levels based on scores where differentmeasures are taken depending on the level. For example, audiochallenges, such as CAPTCHA (“completely automated public Turing test totell computers and humans apart”), may be deployed on callers withdifficulty levels that are influenced by the carrier score. In anotherexample, a coding system e.g., color coding presented to a recipient thelevel of likelihood a caller being an unwanted caller/robocaller, thatis based at least in part on the carrier score.

The phone directory server 112 may monitor carrier traffic (e.g.,reported by users, by analyzing communication content features (orfingerprints) being associated with either wanted or unwantedcommunicators, and/or by identifying likelihood of a wanted or unwantedcommunicator) and adjust their score accordingly so the carrier's orblock of number status can change dynamically. The carrier scoring mayalso take into account how the robocallers (or other bad callers) got ontheir network. For example, if the robocallers were detected asneighborhood spoofers, the carrier would not be penalized for those badcallers. The percentage of unknown callers, that is, not just thosedetermined to be unwanted/robocalls but those that are simply unknown,on a carrier may also be tracked and factored into the dynamic scoring.Some carriers may sell numbers to other entities, and chains of custodymay be tracked to determine which carrier is attributed to theactivities of the numbers. In other cases, a current traffic from blocksof numbers that belong to a carrier may be identified as a block ratherthan a carrier. For example, a spammer may obtain a block of 100 numbersfrom a given carrier and begin a pattern of sequentially using thosenumbers to place unwanted calls. This block of 100 numbers could becataloged in a manner that weighs that block as unwanted rather than theentire carrier.

The call answering server 110 may be configured to screen or filtercalls to phone devices 102 and application-enabled devices 104. Callsdirected to phone devices 102 and application-enabled device 104 may beintercepted by call answering server 110. Phone directory server 112 maybe queried by call answering server 110 to identify whether inboundcalls to the receiving devices from specific numbers are likely to befrom either unwanted communicators or wanted communicators. The callanswering server 110 may also determine that the inbound calls areassociated with carriers identified as bad or suspicious or matchfingerprints from unwanted communicators and can take various measures.

If call answering server 110 determines that the given number is likelyto be the number of an unwanted communicator, such as from a suspiciouscarrier or carrier block, calls from the given number can be handledappropriately (e.g., silenced, marked as spam, etc.) as suspect callsunless the user has placed the given communicator on theirwhite/permitted caller lists or if the call is matched to one or morefingerprints that identifies it as a wanted call. Alternatively,additional tests could be run on those calls by default such as audioCAPTCHA, or users could be given the option whether to accept calls fromthat carrier. Another option is to block phone numbers in a block/seriesof range of numbers, e.g., a block of 1000 numbers which gets purchasedby carriers, or matched patterns based on an origination and destinationphone number. For example, if a carrier carries a communicator with thenumber “646-123-4567,” the system may block all number ranging from“123-4000” through “123-4999.”

Call answering server 110 may also respond to unwanted communicatorcalls by playing an appropriate message containing special informationtones (SIT) to indicate out of service or disconnect tones to theunwanted communicator and terminate the call. On playing the message,the call answering server 110 may combine or create messages from thecarrier of the user and/or the carrier of the communicator to provide amessage identical to that the carrier would play for a disconnectednumber. The message played by call answering server 110 need not be ageneric message but can simulate an actual “telco” experience. Forexample, if a user is a subscriber from a specific carrier, callanswering server 110 may play the carrier's specific audio to anunwanted communicator.

Numbers that are determined as being unlikely from an unwantedcommunicator (or likely from a wanted communicator) may be allowed tocall phone devices 102 or application-enabled devices 104 or directed tovoice mail operations such as playing a message that the subscriber ofthe receiving phone device is unavailable and the communicator mayrecord a voice message. Alternatively, the call answering server mayintercept calls from an unwanted communicator and perform any of thefollowing: 1) report to the communicator that the person they arecalling does not accept these kinds of calls, 2) report to thecommunicator that the person they are calling does not accept any calls,and 3) hang up on the communicator and/or optionally play a disconnectedmessage. Handling of calls from communicators can be equally applied toother communications such as SMS (short message service)/text messagingor the like which are carried by carriers (as opposed to transmittedover WiFi). Further description and details of call answering systemsare described in further detail in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No.9,591,131, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING UNWANTED CALLERSAND REJECTING OR OTHERWISE DISPOSING OF CALLS FROM SAME” which is hereinincorporated by reference in its entirety.

FIG. 2 presents a system for screening communications betweencommunication devices according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. The system includes a destination communication device 202and an origination communication device 204 that are communicativelycoupled by communication network(s) 208. Destination communicationdevice 202 and origination communication device 204 may comprise anydevice or circuitry capable of receiving and/or sending voice or textualcommunications. Communication network(s) may comprise one or moretelephone and data networks operable to transport telecommunications andmessage data. The origination communication device 204 may initiate acommunication, such as a call, text message, or voice message, todestination communication device 202.

Communication screening system 206 may be configured to screen or filtercommunications that are directed to destination communication device202. The communication screening system 206 may comprise a computingdevice including memory and processing devices, such as a servercomputer, or a service interface on a cloud computing platform, that isconfigurable by destination communication device 202 to monitorcommunications to destination communication device 202. A communicationintended for the destination communication device 202 may be receivedfrom an origination communication device 204 and intercepted bycommunication screening system 206. Intercepting the communication mayinclude prompting for a response (audio or textual) from thecommunicator of the origination communication device 204 or extractingdata from the inbound communication to record a digital sample of thecommunication. The communication screening system 206 may also identifya phone number or identifier associated with the originationcommunication device 204. Communication screening system 206 may submitto and query directory server 212 with the sampled communication and thephone number or identifier. Communication screening system 206,directory server 212, and information databases 214 may exist in variousembodiments as either separate systems, or collectively as components ofa single system.

Directory server 212 may provide information results that can be used todetermine whether the inbound communication is from an unwantedcommunicator or a wanted communicator. For example, the directory server212 may include or is communicatively coupled to a database offingerprints that are created from known recordings of calls or messagesfrom unwanted or wanted communicators. The directory server 212 maycompare the sampled communication from the origination communicationdevice 204 with fingerprints in the database of fingerprints and/orprovide a match analysis. Additionally, directory server 212 maycalculate a score of a carrier or block of numbers belonging to thatcarrier servicing the phone number or identifier. The score may becalculated based on a monitoring of traffic, reported instances ofpositive or negative communication behaviors by the carrier or block ofnumbers, or other known attributes of that carrier (such as if thatcarrier enforces anti-spoofing measures in its communications).

The directory server 212 may return a result including fingerprintmatches and a carrier or number block score for the originationcommunication device 204 based on the information provided by thecommunication screening system 206. Communication screening system 206may determine whether the inbound communication is either from anunwanted communicator or a wanted communicator based on a combination ofthe fingerprint matches and the carrier or number block score. If theinbound communication is determined to be from an unwanted communicator,screening system 206 can take various measures, such as, suppressing anyvisual or auditory indications of the communication, performing aCAPTCHA test, blocking the origination communication device 204, playinga message that indicates unavailability, labeling of any recordedcommunication as potential spam (e.g., in a spam folder, or including avisual label), or ending a communication connection. Otherwise, if theinbound communication is not determined to be from an unwantedcommunicator, the call screening system 206 may allow the communicationbetween the origination communication device 204 and the destinationcommunication device 202. Communication screening system 206 may performsimilar or identical functions as disclosed herewith with respect tocall answering server 110.

FIG. 3 presents a flowchart of a method for identifying unwantedcommunicators according to an embodiment of the present invention. Aninbound communication is intercepted, step 302. The inboundcommunication may be a voice call, short message service (SMS) text, orvoice message that is directed to an intended recipient from acommunicator. The communicator may be either unwanted, wanted, or mayhave an unknown phone number, address, or otherwise unique ID. Inboundcommunications may be transcribed and turned into a form suitable foranalysis and matching (e.g., text) using machine learning along withspeech recognition and processing techniques. Exemplary methods andalgorithms that may be used include Hidden Markov models, neuralnetworks, deep learning, and end-to-end automatic speech recognition, toname a few. A suitable form may include a string of characters, oralternatively, a tag cloud.

The inbound communication is compared to fingerprints from a database,step 304. A digital sample of the inbound communication may be extractedand analyzed to determine whether the inbound communication is from anunwanted communicator or a wanted communicator. The database offingerprints may be created from known recordings of calls or messagesfrom unwanted or wanted communicators. The known recordings of calls ormessages may be collected from a plurality of sources such as, voicemessage servers, call forwarding servers, telco and communicationservice carriers. The fingerprints may be used for comparison withinbound calls and messages to distinguish unwanted messages from wantedmessages as well as identifying a likely identity associated with thecommunicator of the inbound communication. Identifying a likely identitymay include determining a probability that a communicator is wanted orunwanted based on determined similarities between the inboundcommunication and the fingerprints. For example, the communicator of theinbound communication may be identified as an unwanted caller if theinbound communication is statistically similar (e.g., a 70% match) toone or more fingerprints associated with known unwanted callers.Alternatively, communicator of the inbound communication may beidentified as an unwanted caller if a number of statistical matchesbetween the inbound communication and fingerprints associated with knownunwanted callers exceeds a particular threshold.

A given fingerprint may comprise features associated with a givenmessage from a phone number of an unwanted communicator. The featuresmay include a phone number, message duration, call frequency, time ofcall, call recipients, keywords, phrases, speech tone and other speechcharacteristics (such as, audio characteristics to help ensurematches—e.g., frequency range, whether it's male/female voice). Featuresof the given fingerprint may be compared to corresponding featuresextracted from the inbound communication. An aggregated score may becalculated based on a comparison of each feature. For example, certainfeatures may be weighted more highly than others in calculating theaggregated score.

Each fingerprint can be associated with a tag based on whether itscontent indicates a problematic or safe communicator. An optionalidentifier including a descriptive or precise name may be associatedwith a communicator of the fingerprint (e.g., IRS Scam) to identify thecommunicator when calling. An algorithmic, rules-based approach may beused to determine whether or not a given fingerprint could indicate anunwanted call and what the likely name should be to identify thecommunicator. For example, the content of the data in the fingerprintmay be analyzed, including phone numbers and keywords that appear in thefingerprint using rules such as, if a fingerprint contains a phonenumber, ID, or address known to be an unwanted communicator (as in theIRS Scam example above), the fingerprint can be tagged as unwanted anduse the same name as other fingerprints also containing that phonenumber, ID, or address. An opposite rule may also be used if thefingerprint contains a known good number to call back, and it can beassumed to be a wanted call. Adding new fingerprints to a fingerprintdatabase may include soliciting feedback from, for example, a humancurator to review the information associated with the fingerprint.

The inbound communication may be compared against the known fingerprintsof messages using methods and algorithms such as, logistic regression,decision trees, Bayesian network, and clustering to determine how muchoverlap there is between a given fingerprint and the inbound voicemessage, and to calculate a matching score. In one embodiment, thecomparison can be based on computing longest matching sequences. Inanother embodiment, the comparison may be based on comparing tag cloudsof the known recordings and the inbound communication, and finding a tagcloud from the known recordings with the “best fit.” A match of inboundcommunications with the known fingerprints may be determined based on ascore that reflects a degree of overlap between an inbound communicationand a given fingerprint. A score that is equal to or exceeds a minimumscore may indicate a match. The minimum score may be determined usingtechniques such as machine learning that is trained with a sample set ofmessages. Any of the above algorithms used in the comparison may alsodetermine a highest matching score over a minimum acceptable score.Alternatively, a match of inbound communications with known fingerprintsmay be determined based on a score that reflects the degree ofdifference between an inbound communication and a given fingerprint.

If the inbound communication does not match any fingerprint, a newcandidate fingerprint may be generated from the inbound communication,step 312. Otherwise, the system may proceed directly to determinedetails of the communicator and the inbound communication based onfingerprint, carrier and number block score, or other attributes, step306. The system may identify the origination number is associated with atelecommunications carrier. A carrier score may comprise a score for thecarrier of the origination number that indicates the likelihood oftraffic from the carrier being unwanted. Likewise, a number block scoremay comprise a score for a block of numbers that indicates thelikelihood of traffic from the block of numbers being unwanted. Thecarrier and number block scores may be determined by referencing a datasource of unwanted call statistics associated with the carrier or numberblock or calculated based on a percentage of suspect traffic orrobocalls associated with the carrier or number block by means ofcommunications monitoring. The score may also be calculated based onreported instances of positive or negative communication behaviors bythe carrier or block of numbers, or other known attributes of thatcarrier (such as if that carrier enforces anti-spoofing measures in itscommunications). Fingerprint, carrier and number block score, and otherattributes may be factored with given weightings for determining actionsin a next step. For example, a call that is determined to be borderlineassociated with a VoIP wholesaler may be considered as spam while a callon a carrier with anti-spoofing measures may be considered good or ratedfavorably.

Appropriate handling of the inbound communication is determined based ona match to any of the fingerprints and/or the carrier and number blockscores, step 308. Determining appropriate handling may rely onidentification of the communicator as wanted or unwanted based onmatching (either a degree of overlap or differences) of the inboundcommunication to any of the fingerprints, and classifying thecommunicator as either an unwanted communicator if the inboundcommunication matches (to a certain degree) one or more fingerprintsassociated with unwanted communicators, or a wanted communicator if theinbound communication matches (to a certain degree) one or morefingerprints associated with wanted communicators. The carrier or numberblock scoring may supplement the fingerprint matching, either confirmingor intervening. Alternatively, if the carrier or number block scoringexceeds given thresholds, either as an absolute number, e.g., 50% or incomparison to other carriers, indicating a good or bad or suspiciouscarrier or number block, the communicator may be inferred to be likelyas wanted or unwanted communicator, depending on if the carrier ornumber block scoring indicates such.

Handling of calls from the communicator is configured, step 310. Usersmay be provided with the option to screen, forward to voicemail, test(e.g., audio CAPTCHA), block, or automatically reject and dispose offuture communications from unwanted communicators should their telephoneor application-enabled device receive a call or message from anunsolicited communicator. For example, if the communicator of theinbound communication is determined to be an unwanted communicator (fromstep 308), suppression of audio or visual call indication, CAPTCHAtesting, spam labeling, call blocking and out-of-service operations maybe configured for the phone number, address, or unique ID associatedwith the inbound communication.

Out-of-service operations may include playing a sequence of tones to thecommunicator followed by a “disconnected message” that emulates thebehavior of a phone number that is not in service. Alternatively,unwanted communicators may be added to a black list where future callsor messages from phone numbers, addresses, or unique IDs from unwantedcommunicators are blocked. Additionally, users can configure theirdevices to not ring or display the inbound communication when they aredetermined to be unwanted, thus effectively eliminating any personaldistraction that may have otherwise experienced upon receiving a callfrom an unwanted communicator. Users can also configure thecommunications from unwanted communicators to be labeled as such, as inthe case of voice messages, organized in a spam folder or annotated witha spam label. Calls from phone numbers, addresses, or unique IDs ofwanted communicators may be configured (e.g., placed on a white list)for unimpeded calling to a user's device or normal voice mail operationsthat allows a communicator to leave a message and access normalanswering service operations. This allows unwanted communicators to beblocked in the future, and desired communicators to always get throughsuccessfully.

The phone number, address, or unique ID of the communicator may also beidentified for future calls (such as in a call log that identifiesblocked calls) to other recipients as well as the intended recipient ofthe inbound communication. That is, a match of an inbound communicationto a type of fingerprint (unwanted vs. wanted) and/or carrier and numberblock score may be used to play an appropriate message (such as an outof service message for unwanted communicators) to communicators from thephone number, address, or unique ID, and an identifier (e.g., IRS Scam)may be used to provide an appropriate communicator ID (such as “IRSScam”), which can be displayed in call logs and other places, even whenthe call has been blocked.

FIG. 4 presents a flowchart of a method for scoring telecommunicationscarriers or number blocks according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. A system may determine communications from one or more phonenumbers as being unwanted, step 402. Determining the communications asbeing unwanted may include analyzing communication content features (orfingerprints) of communications associated with unwanted communicatorsand comparing them with the communications from the phone numbers.

Telecommunications carriers that acquired the phone numbers areidentified, step 404. For example, the phone numbers may have beenacquired by telecommunications carriers who sold or distributed thephone numbers to customers. Number blocks are determined for which thephone numbers are attributed to, step 406. The containing number blocksfor the phone numbers are determined. For example, the phone numbers maybe determined to belong to a series or a range of numbers in blocks of10, 100, 1000, etc.

Scores for the telecommunications carriers and the number blocks arecomputed, step 408. The scores for the telecommunications carriers andnumber blocks may be computed based on an amount of the determinedunwanted communications from the phone numbers. These scores may also beupdated over time by performing continuous monitoring of certain phonenumbers. As discussed herein, certain ones of telecommunication carriersmay cater to robocaller customers. As such, an amount or percentage ofunwanted communication traffic from phone numbers acquired by thetelecommunication carriers may be tracked and used to compute scores forthe telecommunication carriers and number blocks. The system maycontinuously monitor communications from phone numbers and adjusttelecommunication carrier and number block scores accordingly such thata carrier or number block's status can change dynamically. The scorescomputed for the telecommunications carriers or number blocks may beused to screen calls.

FIG. 5 illustrates a flowchart of a method for screening calls accordingto an embodiment of the present invention. A communication screeningsystem may intercept an inbound communication from a given phone number,step 502. The inbound communication may be a voice call, short messageservice (SMS) text, or voice message that is directed to an intendedrecipient from a communicator using the given phone number. Anassociation of the given phone number with a telecommunications carrieris identified, step 504. The association may include thetelecommunications carrier being an acquirer of the given phone number.

The containing number block for a phone number is determined. Forexample, number blocks may be organized in blocks of 10, 100, 1000 orany size. As the owning carrier of a number is determined per step 504,the range belonging to that carrier may also be determined as well asany downstream assignment. In some cases, the carrier for a number maynot be able to be determined but the number block is still relevant. Forexample, the phone number 000-500-1001 does not belong to a U.S.telecommunications carrier but as a number block may be used by anunwanted spam caller who in turn uses all numbers 000-500-1000 through000-500-1999 in a given afternoon to place unwanted calls. As the firstcall in a given 1000 number block range is received and categorized,subsequent communications from other numbers within that block with agiven time period may affect the scoring of that number block, wherebyit may only take a few calls before that entire range is consideredsuspect and subjected to restrictions on how incoming communicationsfrom that number block are handled.

A score of the telecommunications carrier and number block areretrieved, step 506. The score may include an indication or frequency ofunwanted communication traffic being associated with numbers that wereacquired by the telecommunications carrier or belong to that numberblock. Handling of communications from the phone number is configuredbased on the score, step 508. The handling of communications from phonenumbers associated with certain telecommunications carriers may vary.For example, certain scores may cause the communication screening systemto prompt an audio challenge. Other scores may cause the communicationscreening system to forward communications to voice mail and label anyrecorded communication as potential spam. While a high score (e.g., highvolume of unwanted traffic from the carrier) may cause the communicationscreening system to block communications or suppress auditory and/orvisual indication of an incoming communication. FIGS. 1 through 5 areconceptual illustrations allowing for an explanation of the presentinvention. Notably, the figures and examples above are not meant tolimit the scope of the present invention to a single embodiment, asother embodiments are possible by way of interchange of some or all ofthe described or illustrated elements. Moreover, where certain elementsof the present invention can be partially or fully implemented usingknown components, only those portions of such known components that arenecessary for an understanding of the present invention are described,and detailed descriptions of other portions of such known components areomitted so as not to obscure the invention. In the presentspecification, an embodiment showing a singular component should notnecessarily be limited to other embodiments including a plurality of thesame component, and vice-versa, unless explicitly stated otherwiseherein. Moreover, applicants do not intend for any term in thespecification or claims to be ascribed an uncommon or special meaningunless explicitly set forth as such. Further, the present inventionencompasses present and future known equivalents to the known componentsreferred to herein by way of illustration.

It should be understood that various aspects of the embodiments of thepresent invention could be implemented in hardware, firmware, software,or combinations thereof. In such embodiments, the various componentsand/or steps would be implemented in hardware, firmware, and/or softwareto perform the functions of the present invention. That is, the samepiece of hardware, firmware, or module of software could perform one ormore of the illustrated blocks (e.g., components or steps). In softwareimplementations, computer software (e.g., programs or otherinstructions) and/or data is stored on a machine-readable medium as partof a computer program product and is loaded into a computer system orother device or machine via a removable storage drive, hard drive, orcommunications interface. Computer programs (also called computercontrol logic or computer-readable program code) are stored in a mainand/or secondary memory, and executed by one or more processors(controllers, or the like) to cause the one or more processors toperform the functions of the invention as described herein. In thisdocument, the terms “machine readable medium,” “computer-readablemedium,” “computer program medium,” and “computer usable medium” areused to generally refer to media such as a random access memory (RAM); aread only memory (ROM); a removable storage unit (e.g., a magnetic oroptical disc, flash memory device, or the like); a hard disk; or thelike.

The foregoing description of the specific embodiments will so fullyreveal the general nature of the invention that others can, by applyingknowledge within the skill of the relevant art(s) (including thecontents of the documents cited and incorporated by reference herein),readily modify and/or adapt for various applications such specificembodiments, without undue experimentation, without departing from thegeneral concept of the present invention. Such adaptations andmodifications are therefore intended to be within the meaning and rangeof equivalents of the disclosed embodiments, based on the teaching andguidance presented herein. It is to be understood that the phraseologyor terminology herein is for the purpose of description and not oflimitation, such that the terminology or phraseology of the presentspecification is to be interpreted by the skilled artisan in light ofthe teachings and guidance presented herein, in combination with theknowledge of one skilled in the relevant art(s).

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for identifying communicators in acommunication environment as wanted or unwanted, the system comprising:a directory server comprising memory and a processing device configuredto: score telecommunications carriers based on the telecommunicationscarriers having unwanted communication traffic associated with phonenumbers of unwanted communicators; and a communication screening systemconfigured to: intercept an inbound communication from a given phonenumber, identify the given phone number is associated with a given oneof the telecommunications carriers; and configure handling ofcommunications from the phone number based on the scoring of the giventelecommunications carrier.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein thedirectory server determines the scores of the telecommunicationscarriers based on a monitoring of traffic or reported instances ofpositive and negative communication behaviors associated with thetelecommunications carrier.
 3. The system of claim 1 wherein thecommunication screening system prompts for a response from the givenphone number to record a digital sample.
 4. The system of claim 3wherein the communication screening system extracts data from theinbound communication to record the digital sample.
 5. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the inbound communication includes a voice message. 6.The system of claim 1 wherein the communication screening systemconfigures the handling of communications by at least one of suppressionof visual or auditory indication of a communication, blocking the phonenumber, playing a message that indicates unavailability to theorigination communication device, and ending a communication connectionwith the origination communication device.
 7. The system of claim 1wherein the communication screening system is configured to block rangesof numbers or matched patterns based on the phone number.
 8. The systemof claim 1 wherein the directory server compares the inboundcommunication to fingerprints stored in a database.
 9. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the fingerprints comprise sequences of characters thatare representative of content of known communications.
 10. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the directory server dynamically computes the scores forthe telecommunications carriers by tracking percentages of wanted andunwanted communications related to the telecommunications carriers. 11.The system of claim 1 wherein the directory server further: detectsspoofing of the numbers associated with the communications associatedwith the unwanted communicators; and adjusts the scores for thetelecommunications carriers based on the detection of spoofing.
 12. Asystem for identifying communicators in a communication environment aswanted or unwanted, the system comprising: a processor; and a memoryhaving executable instructions stored thereon that when executed by theprocessor cause the processor to: score telecommunications carriersbased on the telecommunications carriers having unwanted communicationtraffic associated with phone numbers of wanted communicators, interceptan inbound communication from a given phone number, identify the givenphone number is associated with a given one of the telecommunicationscarriers, and configure handling of communications from the phone numberbased on the scoring of the given telecommunications carrier.
 13. Amethod, in a communication environment including a data processingsystem comprising a processor and a memory, for identifyingcommunicators as wanted or unwanted, the method comprising: scoring, bythe data processing system, telecommunications carriers based on thetelecommunications carriers having unwanted communication trafficassociated with phone numbers of wanted communicators; intercepting, bythe data processing system, an inbound communication from a given phonenumber; identifying, by the data processing system, the given phonenumber is associated with a given one of the telecommunicationscarriers; and configuring, by the data processing system, handling ofcommunications from the phone number based on scores of the giventelecommunications carrier.
 14. The method of claim 13 furthercomprising determining the score of the telecommunications carrier basedon a monitoring of traffic or reported instances of positive andnegative communication behaviors by the telecommunications carrier. 15.The method of claim 13 further comprising prompting for a response fromthe given phone number to record a digital sample.
 16. The method ofclaim 15 further comprising extracting data from the inboundcommunication to record the digital sample.
 17. The method of claim 13wherein the inbound communication includes a voice message.
 18. Themethod of claim 13 further comprising computing the scores for thetelecommunications carriers by tracking percentages of wanted unwantedcommunications from the telecommunications carriers.
 19. The method ofclaim 13 further comprising configuring the handling of communicationsby at least one of suppression of visual or auditory indication of acommunication blocking the phone number, playing a message thatindicates unavailability to the origination communication device, andending a communication connection with the origination communicationdevice.
 20. The method of claim 13 further comprising blocking sets ofnumber ranges or patterns based on the phone number.
 21. A method, in acommunication environment including a data processing system comprisinga processor and a memory, for identifying communicators as wanted orunwanted, the method comprising: determining communications from a firstphone number as being likely unwanted, determining the first phonenumber belongs to a block of a plurality of second phone numbers basedon telecommunications carrier association, and intercepting an inboundcommunication from a given phone number, identifying the given phonenumber as being within the block of second phone numbers; identifyingthe inbound communication as likely unwanted based on the identificationthat the given phone number is within the block of second phone numbers;and handling the inbound communication as an unwanted communication. 22.The method of claim 21 wherein handling the inbound communicationfurther comprises handling the inbound communication by at least one ofsuppression of visual or auditory indication of a communication,blocking the given phone number, playing a message that indicatesunavailability to a communication device of the given phone number, andending a communication connection with the communication device.
 23. Themethod of claim 21 further comprising determining scores of the block ofsecond phone numbers based on a monitoring of traffic or reportedinstances of positive and negative communication behaviors associatedwith the block of second phone numbers.
 24. The method of claim 21further comprising blocking the block of second phone numbers.
 25. Themethod of claim 21 further comprising dynamically computing scores forthe block of second phone numbers by tracking percentages of wanted andunwanted communications related to the block of second phone numbers.